Electrochemical Studies on Sugarcane Leaf-Derived Activated Carbon

In recent scenarios, energy storage applications for biomaterials have played a vital role in the development of carbon-based materials derived from biodegradable waste. Activated carbon was prepared from sugarcane leaves by a pyrolysis process, and ZnCl2 was used as an activation agent at 400 °C. The XRD and FTIR measurements confirmed the presence of carbon and functional groups. The estimated band gap was 1.87 eV, and the absorption efficiencies for the raw sugarcane leaf and activated material were obtained by photocatalytic dye degradation absorption studies. From the cyclic voltammetry data, the calculated specific capacitance was 11 F/g at a scan rate of 5 mV/s, which confirms the absence of redox reactions. The galvanostatic charge-discharge shows the specific capacitance of 38.7 F/g at a current density of 1 A/g and energy and power density values of 10 Wh/kg and 5 kW/kg, respectively. The material shows good cyclic stability and coulombic efficiency and is maintained consistently for 500 long cycles.